School of the Air offering unique opportunities

A student in remote Western Australia, one in Cambodia, and one on a sheep station 130km north of Hay. This is a classroom for School of the Air teacher Kate Murphy.

One student sets up with a laptop outside a camp trailer in Western Australia; another sets up in Cambodia; and a third on a family sheep station, 130km north of Hay – all learning together despite the distance.

This is the reality of the classroom for Kate Murphy, assistant principal at Hay School of the Air, a distance education provider for students located across remote areas of Australia.

Growing up in Hay, Kate moved away and had a teaching stint in Sydney before returning to her hometown as a School of the Air teacher in 2015.

She said the importance of professional growth in her life influenced her to pursue a career in the remote learning classroom, as well as the opportunity to acquire new skills in a different educational setting.

“School of the Air brings a lot of unique challenges and opportunities and that’s something I enjoy tackling each day,” she said.

“I’ve always been quite passionate about education in rural and remote areas. I believe that every child can grow and improve, irrespective of where they live, or the challenges that they face.”

Kate Murphy, assistant principal at Hay School of the Air. Pictures: Andrew McLean

Now assistant principal, Kate said she loved many different aspects of her role, and that the opportunity to teach students across different stages of learning development and from remote areas of Australia has been a highlight.

“A lot of my experience has been teaching students who have been geographically isolated on stations, but also students who have been travelling internationally or domestically, have different support needs, or high potential and gifted students,” she said.

“You get a really broad and diverse experience, and it’s really nice to be able to positively influence the way that all of these students learn.”

Across both the Broken Hill and Hay classrooms, the NSW School of the Air has 135 students currently enrolled, through preschool to year 6.

With most classes being taught via Microsoft Teams at Hay, Kate said the remote aspect of teaching and learning could be challenging.

“Our main challenge would be establishing and maintaining connection, but it’s not something we shy away from,” Kate said.

Kate Murphy teaching students over Microsoft Teams.

Aside from organising face-to-face events for her students, Kate also organises events where they come together with students at other local small schools across the community.

“It’s a really good opportunity for them to be developing skills in teamwork, collaboration and communication, and we try to organise something that is different from a regular maths or English class,” she said.

Ensuring that these connections extend to online learning, Kate said a switch from the REACT software program to Microsoft Teams about a year ago had been huge for the school.

“We could only see two kids at once with REACT, and now in the past year or two we can have 50 kids looking at each other, which is really nice,” she said.

Aside from teaching, Kate said her students had also inspired her to travel to new parts of Australia.

“I have a lot of places I would like to go that a lot of students are writing about. I think Western Australia is the place to be – Broome, Exmouth to see the whale sharks. So I definitely have places I would like to go,” she said.

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